


Knife to a Sword Fight

by cinnamonears



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Selectively Mute Link, Sign Language, Words are hard, and they fuq, boy's gotta talk to people somehow, do you know how hard it is to write these two having sex, he's psychic too, it's mild psychic, just bone you two!!!, stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion, that's what the bold-italics are, they have a billion concerns that interrupt constantly, this is soft and cute and I'm not sorry, where I earn my explicit rating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 08:20:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14445210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamonears/pseuds/cinnamonears
Summary: It starts innocently enough. Zelda wants to learn swordfighting. Link can teach her. But the princess is better at combat than he expected, and he's fairly sure Urbosa is to blame for everything that follows.





	Knife to a Sword Fight

**Author's Note:**

> Any bold-italicized text is meant to be 'psychic' speak. It is my preference as a writer to enable a mostly-mute Link, who speaks aloud when necessary (or needed), signs for the rest, and psychically communicates when his hands are full. Consider it a perk of the triforce. 
> 
> If you find this to be unwieldy, please let me know in the comments! 
> 
> If you enjoy this and want to see it finished, please let me know in the comments! 
> 
> In fact, please let me know literally anything in the comments! This is a fandom I have a lot of love for, so I'm nervous putting out content for it, but I hope everyone enjoys. As a ship, zelink deserves appreciation.
> 
> Another important note for me is that I don't mark zelink with Nintendo's chosen ages. In this iteration, Link is roughly 20 or 21 (he can't remember), and Zelda's a little over 18. None of that underage stuff.

**_You should always be anticipating what comes next_ ** , Link tells her. And he throws her into a pile of hay.

Sword training or not, princesses demand a certain level of dignity. Piles of anything are not dignified. He has never seen a dignified pile once in his life. But she manages to, at least, pull off  _ in _ dignant with an amazing amount of charm. There’s hay sticking out of her hair. She’s beautiful.

“Link!” 

Her admonishment, coupled with an appropriate gasp, makes him grin.  **_Yes, princess?_ ** The joy in his chest only blossoms as she sits up and he sees that she’s laughing too; Link adds to the comedic effect by hastening to put his sword behind his back. 

“That was a cheap trick,” she says, combing the stray pieces from the gold in a way that he can’t help but watch. The impulses comes to kneel before her, pick each out himself, weave his fingers through the soft strands, but he resists.

**_No trick_ ** , he assures her, bending to offer a hand back up.  **_Only a lesson. You should be prepared to defend yourself from everything. Any surprise attack._ **

The princess, in all her pristine glory, scowls at him. He does not tell her it’s cute. He definitely does not kiss her. “It was dirty fighting.” Despite this, she accepts the hand and allows him to pull her up, dusting her pants off in the process.

_ Pfft _ , is his insightful response. 

“During training?” Zelda snorts at him, focusing on the gerudo scimitar she’s been practicing with, now several lengths away. He’s already adjusted his opinion of her abilities with swordplay; something tells him that it’s something he’d known more about before the Fall. That said, there’s no mistaking the style. Urbosa’s the culprit for his princess’s battle stance. He misses her, he realizes, in the way that he does about his past memories now and then, in the way he feels about the other champions. Some days they feel closer. On others, further. But the gerudo champion holds a special place in his memories, if for no reason other than the way she'd treated Zelda; the typically fierce warrior had been a protector to the princess long before he'd come along.

His absent thinking has him staring, and when she raises an eyebrow, Link blinks into focus, banishing darker thoughts before they can come to light. 

“Should I remain constantly ready to be seized?” Her tone is sarcastic, but it’s the use of the word ‘seize’ that does it, maybe mingled with his thoughts of the sultry Gerudo Town. Traitorous eyes wander down her body and away.

The look was brief, but he has no doubt that the type of  _ seizing  _ that came to his mind was transparent. He’s had a history of that, he’s found, tumbling into vacant thought and… well, in this case, fantasy. It was easy to do when your brain was full of memory and not-memory and not-your-memory-but-kind-of-your-memories. There’s a convenient tree nearby that he can study, so he does that, signing, “It’s good to be careful.”

Her pause is even briefer. It’s enough to confirm that she noticed. 

The tree becomes threefold more fascinating.  The princess steps closer. 

He studies the tree and reminds himself that her proximity should make no difference.

“Good to be wary from threats you have given me no preparation for? Seems to be a training under-sight.” 

Link signs, “It is only day one. This is the lesson.”

“And what lesson are you teaching me?” She’s gotten nearer. It would make sense to look at her again, because it’s been long enough that it might be strange if he doesn’t, and so he does, and he’s amazed to note that she’s smirking. 

It does something to him to see it. The burn at the tips of his ears is probably giving him away, but his gut clenches, and the grip on his sword - his  _ broadsword _ ,  _ obviously  _ \- tightens. Her nearness ensnares him, and she knows.  **_To be prepared._ **

Oh goddess. Zelda is intent in her advance and keeps his gaze. “Prepared…?”

**_For surprise attacks_ ** , He says, entranced. 

And because, for whatever reason, he’s completely incapable of predicting what the princess is going to do at any moment, she attacks him. Where the knife came from, he hasn’t got a clue. Link’s hand is up fast enough to stop her wrist, but he braces them both as they tumble from momentum back onto the hay.

He lands with an ‘oof-’ and feels the wind exit his breath.  **_Where did you get that?_ ** he asks in a daze. His perspective has taken a sudden shift, and to top it off, now he has an entire princess laid across him.

Not that it seems to be slowing said-royalty down at all. “You think I do not keep a hidden knife on my person?” The grin on her face is stretched wide, and there’s challenge written there; Zelda’s always fiercer when contest is on the line, and he has no doubt that she’s determined to win. But he’s distracted, too, by the weight of her, the way she shifts to sit up, knees on either side of him, exhilarated-

The knife lays his cheek open in a movement he utterly fails to anticipate, and one that he should have, given the situation. Link yelps and throws up a hand to cover the wound, turning his face away, and even with his pain protesting, he notices her jerk upright.

“Link?!” There’s a ' _fuff'_ - _c_ latter that’s probably the knife falling. “Oh, goddess, I-  _ fuck- _ ” Her hand, soft and insistent, joins his, trying to get a glimpse of the injury. “I’m so sorry, Link, I’m so- Hold still-”

Because he’s started laughing. The wound isn’t that deep - a lasting scar at worst - and he’s just had his face cut open by the  _ princess _ and she’s  _ panicking  _ and if this isn’t the most absurd situation and maybe that’s the pain talking- His hand lowers, sticky with blood, so he can sign, “Did you  _ swear _ ?”

Her hands leave him, and Link almost,  _ almost _ , protests, but the panicked little sound she makes is enough to stop him. “Oh, shut up. Are you alright?”

This question rolls off of him, and the scolding has him laughing again. He signs, “You did! Who taught you that!” In all of his memories and all of his encounters with the princess  _ since  _ the Calamity had been destroyed, he’d never heard her say something foul. As a result, he’d kept his own cursing in check. Now he’s wondering if he should’ve bothered.

“I am not telling. Now stay still and let me fix your face.” It’s the only warning he gets before she covers the wound with her palm, and so he dampens his laughter to a chuckle and watches her instead. The goddess’s magic glows warm against his skin, golden in the peripheral of his vision, and as the pain ebbs, he can see his princess relax. “...There. No harm done.” 

Link smiles and signs to confirm, “No harm done.” 

Her hand still has blood on it when it comes to rest against his chest. Not that he minds (he’s gotten blood out of his clothes more times than he can count), but it does draw his attention to the way she’s worrying at her lower lip. It’s a nervous tic, a habit she had even Before, and something that  _ hasn’t  _ changed is the way he wants to rub his thumb over the torn skin and draw her in for- “I will be more careful, next time.”

“No!” His hand comes up to lay over hers - the bloody one, why does he keep doing that, it’s fine, hers is bloody too -  **_You struck a blow while defending yourself. Do not apologize._ **

It amazes him when she shivers. “I did not mean to cut you.”

But she’s frightened. Injuries aren’t as common of a sight, and he already knows it distresses her to see it. Link can’t keep the fondness out of his tone when he says,  **_I know. It was a surprise attack._ ** And to prove that there was no harm done, he takes her hand and brings her knuckles up to skim where the injury is freshly healed, nothing but a puckered thin line. This, though, brings another surprise; her thumb skates the wound. 

And it makes him acutely aware, once more, of the fact that she’s straddling him. In healing the injury, she’s wiggled up to sit on his stomach. Now she’s leaned in, and her eyes are luminous. To mask the shudder that runs down his spine, Link gives her a smile and a nudge, repeating:  **_No harm done._ **

“I thought you would catch me before I managed to hurt you,” Zelda mumbles, thumb guiding along the wound again. She seems deep in thought, heavy with concern, as though he’s going to change his mind and reprimand her. That, he imagines, is leftover from King Rhoam.

“I was distracted,” He signs to her, before he realizes a second later that he might need to have a source for his distraction. The source, naturally, is straddling him with concerned eyes. “By-” Link’s mind casts for a satisfactory answer. “Planning my next move.”    
  
Primary Distraction Number One shifts as she crosses her arms - he has an impulse to remind her about the blood, but she doesn’t seem to care. “Is that so?”

The movement draws his eyes down and back up again. This time, he says aloud, “Y-yes?” 

And his heart almost bursts out of his chest when she puts her palm back down, right over his heart, and leans in. Her hair flutters down around her face, bringing with it the smell of whatever soap she’s used, lavender and a crisp sweet smell that reminds him of apples. “And what-” Zelda asks, and Link thinks she  _ has  _ to know what she’s doing with her voice. “-would it have been?” 

Some of that cursing that he’s held in up until this point is bouncing around in his brain. Coherency in his mind is rare even in the best of moments, and the princess is inches from his face, smelling  _ literally  _ delicious and likely to feel his heart racing a thousand beats a minute-

In an attempt to save face, Link rolls her in the hay. Their positions flip, and suddenly he’s on top of her, a more advantageous position in every way,  _ except _ . Except that she gasps and parts her lips and stares at him and doesn’t speak. 

They stare at each other like this, both of them as surprised as the other by his boldness, breathless and caught, and he stammers a rather eloquent “Um-” 

But Zelda has plans of her own. Before Link can react, say anything at further, she’s pressing her mouth to his.

And now they’re  _ kissing _ . A burst of furious elation explodes in his chest, but he’s careful in the return, mindful of the fact that he  _ does  _ have her pinned down and she  _ did  _ lay open his face just minutes before-

A shallow gasp signals the end, and the princess looks… terrified. “I am so sorry, I should not have-”

Link’s already chasing the kiss and stops himself at her words, resumes their game of staring, and watches as she comes to the realization on her own that she has no reason to be sorry. While they’re paused, he rubs his bloody hand on his tunic, cleaning. He’s afraid to speak, fearful of breaking this moment that he’s already etching into his memory forever (a bold statement, from him), and it occurs that it might help if he says, “No, it’s-”

“Can I kiss you again?” The princess - the princess! - asks him and even tacks on, “Please?”

It’s a silly question to answer aloud, so he does so by kissing her. The tension breaks and transforms into some form of desperation that Link, even through the buzz of thrill, can tell is mutual. They stay like this, exchanging warm kisses, until her fingers wind in his hair and elicit a whine that he can’t quite stamp out. He moves back to ask if this is okay, if they should be kissing in a pile of hay outside of his house, but when his mouth forms the word, Zelda kisses it out of him. 

Well. If they’re going to keep at this a while, he’s going to make himself more comfortable. He rakes a hand through the hay, half to convince himself this is real with the texture of the scratchy grain, half to support himself above her so he doesn’t pin her with his weight. A thought flickers in the back of his mind, but her tongue slips past his lips and he loses it. 

Despite his attempts to be a level of courteous, the princess is having none of it. He’s in the middle of a daze, trying to place the flavor of her tongue - honey? she’d had tea with breakfast - when Zelda  _ nips  _ him. There’s no stopping the groan that escapes, and so much for staying polite; it’s an impulse reaction that presses him closer and that staggers an audible, “Ze- Princess-” 

His words cause her to freeze. “Link,” Zelda breathes, leaning back onto the ground. Her lips are swollen, and he can’t stop staring at them. “You do not have to do this. You do not have to- to please me, or-” His eyes go to hers, incredulous. “Or anything. You are my  _ friend. _ ”

And he’s so  _ floored _ by the notion of what she’s saying that he doesn’t respond right away. Her hand rests on his cheek again, and it occurs to him that she seems more worried by the second. “Please do not give yourself to me because I am the princess.” Please her. Give himself to her.  _ Give himself to her _ . Didn’t he already do that ages ago? “This is not your duty.” 

The last word does it. “No!” Startled, Link sits up and waves his hands, stricken by the idea that he might fumble this and lose the opportunity to kiss her more. The frantic gesture turns into sign, “My only concern is for you. For-” And here he gets stuck. How does he explain… that she’s the vessel of the  _ goddess _ . That she’s the  _ princess of Hyrule _ , soon to be ruling  _ queen _ , and that all it would take is a word and he’d never touch her  _ again _ . That he’s a mess, can’t remember half of who he should be, can’t remember half of who he’s been, that he spends his days rolling in dirt and blood and sweat and guts and now-

Now his best friend is lying in a pile of hay. It’s sunny and warm, gentle breeze stirring from the east that brings with it the distant tang of ocean salt. The horses are tied off on the other side of the fence, pulling at grass and uninterested in the tumbles of their Hylian riders. She wants to kiss him more.

The castle seems very far away.

“Sword training,” he finishes signing with a lame sweep of his hands in the motion of a weapon. 

Her stare is blank with confusion. “Sword… training?” 

Link can feel his face burning. “We were supposed to be-”

It clicks, and she sits up. It reminds him of the indignant way she’d done so before, hair fluttering around her face and fists curling in little balls. “Well, I- If you would rather we be sword training, we can certainly-”

Now he shields his face with a hand, uncomfortably aware that he’s digging his own grave.  **_I do not want you to misinterpret my intentions_ ** -

“ _ Your  _ intentions?” This, it seems, was the wrong thing to say, because now the princess looks offended. “ _ I _ kissed  _ you _ ! And I am sorry, perhaps I-” The fists go to her lap, uncurl and curl again. “Should not have. We should return to sword training. I am sorry for- for taking advantage of the situation.” 

And she moves to stand up, so Link uses inhuman speed to grab her wrist, eyes stretched wide with concern. “Don’t-”

Zelda freezes like a rabbit.

They hold the stare for a few aching seconds, then Link throws caution to the wind and drags his princess -  _ his  _ princess - back in for a clumsy recreation of the kiss from a few minutes before. It’s a huge relief when she melts against him, and it’s like they didn’t have the awkward exchange at all. He’s kissing her, he’s kissing her, pulling at the edge of her lip that he’d noticed earlier, the one she’d dappled with redness from all the anxious chewing, kisses and adds a nip of his own.

This time, when he pulls back, she looks dizzy. He tries to hide how smug he feels, instead opts for brushing his thumb against her cheek, and he gets the impression from her that she can’t believe she’s gotten what she wanted.

**_What_ ** **_you_ ** **_wanted?_ ** Link sharply laughs, kissing her again to muffle it. What a ludicrous idea.

“Do you know how  _ long _ -” She says as she drags him back down, and he thanks her for the momentum in silence, uses the kiss this time to press her into the hay. “But I didn’t- I wanted you to want it too. Not- Not because I ordered, or asked-”   
  
He laughs again, and this time it’s in disbelief, straightening up so she can see his face and the way he searches her expression. Link opts to speak aloud, aware of the weight of it, words slow and garnished with half of a smile. “You are the princess. Perhaps our next queen. The chosen  _ vessel  _ of the goddess Herself.” The hand on her cheek slides to push some loose strands of hair away from her eyes. “What sort of arrogance-”

But her smile fades. “I  _ am _ all of those things. What right would you have to deny me, if I asked?”

“What right-” Link continues, pointed. “-would  _ I  _ have to ask at all?”

Zelda turns her head away and seems to study the sky. “So,” She exhales. “Neither of us had the right to ask.”

When she breathes out, he breathes with her. “Good thing you have already given me permission.”

This earns him the ghost of a smile and her eyes back on him. Unless he’s mistaken, she… shivers. “Yes.”

_Please her_. _Give himself to her_. He’s no wordsmith, but the phrasing is curious at a minimum, and it fills him with a hunger. “You may have any part of me you wish,” Link confirms, voice husky from a mix of disuse and desire. “Freely given.” 

Following the trend of the day, instead of answering him, Zelda leans in and presses her lips to his neck. His heart starts to race, beating a tempo against his pulse that he’s certain she can feel as he tilts his head away, otherwise unmoving and letting her explore. This is… different, from kissing her lips. He’s at her mercy as she traces up the curve of his neck, breath tickling at the sensitive cusp of his ear. 

Still straddling her, Link’s legs tighten on either side and his hand fumbles to find hers and squeeze. He whispers, “Princess-”

And then she bites his ear.

He yelps, tucking in rather than pulling away, muffling the sound against her shoulder. It’s not the best idea, he realizes a moment later, since it’s bound to be clear that he’s aroused as close as he’s pressed to her.  **_What-_ **

Zelda’s got a wicked grin on her face when he catches a glimpse, but that’s all he gets, because she leans in and bites him again, this time rougher and on the side of his neck. It borders on violent, followed by a suck that makes him shudder all the way down to his toes. “Still fighting?” he asks, breathless.

“No,” She informs. “Marking.”   
  
**_Marking_ ** \- and even mentally, he stumbles over the implication, reels with it as she admires her handiwork. He can feel her fingers tracing where, he assumes, there’s now a bright red blossom of blood under the skin. It’s not that he’s new to intimacy - Link has slept with a number of peoples, all across Hyrule, of various races and genders - but it’s  _ different _ when it’s Zelda, when she’s so endearingly proud. Possessiveness rakes his chest in silence, raw and keen, as he tangles his hand in her hair and she  _ squirms. _ He hasn’t kissed her enough. That’s terrible. 

Link presses her against the ground again, this time with his full weight, and kisses her with a hot tangle of breath and tongue. She  _ moans _ . Something in him breaks. “Goddesses, you-” The grip in her hair tightens. “May I-” No, words are bad right now. He struggles to use them on the best of days, and that’s way too much to do with his mouth when it has better things to focus on.  _ - _ **_touch you? Please?_ ** There’s no plan in mind, but he has to know, has to be sure before his touch wanders further. 

“Yes,” She breathes. “Goddess, yes.” 

Permission given, his hand breaks away from holding hers and drags down her side instead, like he’s worried it’ll be revoked if he waits too long. But she seems to have no hesitation, giving another low sound of pleasure at his touch even before his fingertips ghost her stomach, nudging her riding tunic out of the way. His gloves are still on, the ones that leave his fingers free for gripping and cover his palm from the twist of the sword pommel, but her skin is smooth and warm.   
  
He sits up. Zelda watches him do it, and the sight of her spread out across the hay is breathtaking. Her hair, golden in the sun, seems to mingle with the strands of grain, creating an endless wave, and her cheeks are flushed from exertion. It’s like being caught in… in the gaze of a guardian, but a thousand, a million, times better.

Link gives her a bashful smile that in no way slows the upward slide of his hand, which continues under fabric until it’s high enough to skate the side of her breast. Her eyes flicker closed, and for a moment, he’s drunk on the exhilaration of watching her surrender to his touch. It’s a scenario that’s played out in his fantasies more times than he would  _ ever _ admit, keeping him company in the cold and lonely nights after he’d woken. And the next step… 

His hand shifts to cover her breast, palming her in a careful way, like he isn’t sure this is allowed in spite of asking. The whimper it draws puts those concerns to rest, and if that didn’t do the trick, Zelda’s hand covering his own would. She presses, insistent that he should continue, and the sensation pulls a breathy “Link-” from her lips.   
  
In the space of two seconds, any of his reservations fly out the window. Exactly how long he’s wanted her he couldn’t say, but Link knows he wants her now, more than he’s maybe wanted anything in his entire life. In an act of boldness, he dips his head and moves his hand to cup her breast instead. Eyes locked on her face, he laves his tongue over the fabric of her tunic, right over her nipple.

“Take it off.” Her demand - her order - is whined, but lacks no force. “I want it off-” And she fumbles at the buttons, hands shaking and frantic in a way that makes him giggle. He joins her in the attempt, disbelieving that he’s doing this at all, and when it opens, it reveals a lacy undergarment that he wouldn’t have expected from his practical princess. It catches his breath, keeps him staring, trying to memorize the contour of her body, the way her supple skin shifts beneath the fabric, how the swell of lace compliments the swell of breast-

He glances up to see Zelda watching him and flushes. “You’re,” he stammers, reeling with how beautiful the sight under his fingers is and unable to articulate it further.

The hand that had gone abandoned on her stomach is caught by her fingers. He watches, captivated, as she brings it up to rest against the lace. “You may have any part of me you wish,” She echoes him, fervent. “Freely given.” 

His gut clenches with want, and he massages with an obedient roll, soft skin and lace under his fingers. But it occurs to Link that his hands are calloused, rough, and the leather of his gloves doesn’t seem good for the fabric. So he slides his hand up to cup her face instead, intending to say… something, anything that would be appropriate, but the movement draws out a push of her body up and he forgets that he wanted to say anything at all. 

Instead, he kisses her neck, far gentler than her own had been, and raises his hand to his mouth so he can tug his glove free with his teeth. 

This movement, the lack of the weight on sensitive skin, draws her eyes open in time to see him do this. When she stares, Link offers her a grin, and there’s a predatory nature to it. Gloveless, his hand returns to her breast, this time able to feel the peak of nipple below his palm, and he does nothing more than slide across the lace, appreciating the contrasting feel of flesh and fabric. 

**_Very delicate_ ** , he muses. 

“Uh-huh” is the royal response, breathless. 

**_Something more delicate then_ ** , he confirms, and presses a heated kiss to her neck. Right away, she catches him there, refusing to let him pull away even if he had wanted. Which he doesn’t, but the encouragement inspires him to scrape the divot of neck and shoulder with his teeth. Link  _ adores  _ the way he can feel her body rise against his, her chest heaving against the press of his circling palm and her whine pushing past her lips. 

This isn’t exactly what he wants, though, and so he begins to trail his kisses down. The tangle of her fingers in his hair follows him, clinging more than pulling. When he reaches his intended goal, he places a chaste kiss at the top of her breast and then demonstrates exactly what he meant by ‘delicate touch’. His tongue swirls over nipple, wolfish smile at the squeak it elicits, and then closes his mouth around the bundle of nerves and gives it a pull. 

Oh, and  _ that _ . That is  _ delicious _ . Because the princess shrieks, toes curling and hips rolling, throws a hand up over her mouth to dampen the sound. Her eyes are still closed, though, and he can hear the muffled noises of pleasure through her fingers. 

As much as he wants to keep hearing that - she had  _ screamed _ and he was barely  _ touching her _ , what  _ other  _ noises might she make - his eyes cut over to the bridge leading up to his house. Hateno is quiet, almost sleepy, and the cries of a young woman might carry through the valley. The last thing he wants is to call concerned villagers to his little home. 

His warning is nothing more than his hand brushing over her folded fingers, but she responds, “S-Sorry.” Even that word is whimpered. “I will be quiet.”

A beat passes, marked by the drag of his tongue up over lace until it reaches empty skin, and when he raises his head, his tongue hangs out of his mouth. Distracted by what he’s about to offer, it takes him a second to realize and he swipes it over his lips, like wetting them was what he’d planned to do all along. “There is a bed inside,” Link points out, voice low. “If you feel we need it.” 

Their eyes meet. 

“Take me there,” Zelda orders.   



End file.
